Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Par­ents await­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s book grant could be­gin re­ceiv­ing pay­ments from next week as the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion moves to fi­nalise ap­provals ahead of the Sep­tem­ber 7 re­open­ing of schools.

Act­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said the $20 mil­lion dis­burse­ment is now ap­proach­ing its fi­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive stages, with ap­provals ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in days.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Padarath said, “I’m ad­vised by the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion that all ap­provals will be fi­nalised by ear­ly next week.”

He said the process should then move to the Min­istry’s Ac­counts De­part­ment, clear­ing the way for pay­ments to be­gin.

“All ap­provals have been met, all the funds have been iden­ti­fied, so we’re hop­ing af­ter next week, once that process is com­plet­ed, then dis­burse­ment will start,” he said.

Padarath con­firmed that the grant pro­gramme will cost the State ap­prox­i­mate­ly $20 mil­lion.

The as­sis­tance is in­tend­ed to help vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies meet the cost of books and oth­er school sup­plies ahead of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Un­der the sys­tem pre­vi­ous­ly out­lined by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, pri­or­i­ty con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to peo­ple re­ceiv­ing pub­lic as­sis­tance, un­em­ployed peo­ple, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and low-in­come house­holds.

Suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants can re­ceive pay­ments di­rect­ly to the bank ac­counts pro­vid­ed dur­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion process, while some ben­e­fi­cia­ries re­ceive cheques through Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Of­fices.

Last year, the min­istry used a phased pay­ment sys­tem for the grant, with ben­e­fi­cia­ries no­ti­fied by email when pay­ments were processed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art said fam­i­lies des­per­ate­ly need this fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance as the start of the school term draws clos­er.

“Par­ents, guardians and even stu­dents are anx­ious­ly await­ing these funds, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the new school term quick­ly ap­proach­ing,” Stew­art said.

He said some ben­e­fi­cia­ries are “whol­ly de­pen­dent” on the as­sis­tance to pur­chase es­sen­tial books and school sup­plies.

The NPTA is urg­ing the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to keep par­ents up­dat­ed as the pay­ment process moves for­ward.

“NPTA wish­es to ap­peal to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to seek to mit­i­gate the in­creas­ing anx­i­ety by pro­vid­ing reg­u­lar, time­ly and trans­par­ent up­dates on the progress and the even­tu­al com­mence­ment of pay­ments,” Stew­art said.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion re­mains op­ti­mistic that pay­ments can be­gin “post-haste,” pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial re­lief to fam­i­lies and en­sur­ing stu­dents are prop­er­ly equipped when schools re­open on Sep­tem­ber 7.

Lap­tops tar­get­ed for first term

Mean­while, Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment is aim­ing to place lap­tops in the hands of Form One stu­dents dur­ing the first term of the 2026/2027 aca­d­e­m­ic year.

He said the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, through Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), will serve as the pro­cure­ment agency for the de­vices.

“Cab­i­net has agreed to that and there is a part­ner­ship be­tween the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties in the pro­cure­ment of the lap­tops,” Padarath said.

He said that pro­cure­ment process is cur­rent­ly un­der­way and will in­volve an open ten­der.

“The aim is to en­sure that lap­tops reach Form One stu­dents with­in the first term of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year,” he said.

Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to repli­cate last year’s dis­tri­b­u­tion time­line.

“You would re­call last year we were able to de­liv­er all lap­tops with­in the first term of that aca­d­e­m­ic year and that is the same ob­jec­tive for this year,” he said.

“So, we are on track to do so.”